Previously on ER, this guy named...Marv? Marcus? Martin? I can't remember, but he got some kind of brain growth. It's hard to say -- they've barely dealt with it. But he's got a maximum of ten months to live, if the chemotherapy works. His estranged wife Elizabeth returned home to care for him. Meanwhile, Abby slept at Luka's because her abusive neighbor Brian hadn't moved out of her building.
I should point out off the bat that I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the show's earlier episodes, least of all the very first season. It's not that I didn't watch it, but I just didn't watch it with particular attention to detail. Like, I'd be on the computer playing Tetris -- and kicking ass at it, too, mind you -- while my mother wept over the latest patient death and fell in love with the program. So consider this my heartfelt apology for missing some of the synergies and references that the writers will drop into Mark's last episodes; fortunately, though, the forum regulars have been great at noting those. And Wing Chun might be able to weigh in, too. ["Except that I started watching it regularly with the second-season premiere, so as long as it's about something that happened after that, I'm all set." -- Wing Chun]
Cue the Droopy Music of Ten Months To Live. Dr. Mark "The End is Nigh" Greene is shooting hoops outside County General, and he's doing it in slow motion. I'm sure he'd prefer to be moving quickly but, you know, he's dying. Mark dribbles and shoots. He scores. And that's a sentence I hope I'll never read outside this context. , he shows off his ball-handling skills and dribbles through his legs...oh, good lord, now I'm snickering like a ten-year-old. Deep breaths. Sobering thoughts. Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day. And...we're good to continue. Mark keeps making baskets with a loud, pumped-up swoosh noise. That takes us into not-slow motion. What is that? Normal motion? Keep Walking, Nothing To See Here motion?
Dr. John "Hey, Remember When I Was Having Shocking Back Pain 'Relapses'? Yeah, Me Neither" Carter storms out of the ER in a right tantrum and heaves a metal chart to the ground. Mark wonders if Carter's somehow been savaged by the office supplies. "I just pronounced Blue Bertha," Carter spits. Yes, yes he did, and he pronounced it well. Ta-da! Thank you. I'll be here all through Sweeps Week, ladies and gentlemen. Apparently, Blue Bertha is one of Carter's regular patients, and she just died of some lung disease. Mark idly shoots hoops, adopting a serene air to contrast Carter's dejection. It's like he's elevated himself past this sort of angst. It's creepy. Carter rambles that Blue Bertha disobeyed all his advice about quitting smoking, and that he'd often spot her lighting up on the way out of the hospital after treatment. "Behind the crack, no rim," Mark says. I hate Mark's lines. He scores, and Carter rebounds. Absently, Carter shoots and misses, still bemoaning Blue Bertha's disobedience. Mark's all, "That's an H for you," because he thinks they're playing Horse. Except Carter totally doesn't care. "I call this the Spirit Killer," Mark says, turning around so his back's to the basket and heaving the ball back over his head. Swish. He makes it. ["Yeah, he makes it in three cuts, so even if we're supposed to think Mark is great at basketball, now we know Anthony Edwards isn't." -- Wing Chun] Carter is impressed, and follows that up with a major air ball. Mark finally addresses Carter's concerns. "Whether they take our advice or not, it's up to them," he says. Carter laments that Bertha would still be alive if she'd listened. "As hard as it was to deal with Blue Bertha, it's still harder to be Blue Bertha," Mark the Doctor-Patient says, with the wisdom of one who's trying very hard to learn a special lesson. Honestly, I feel like it's too soon in the show for Mark to talk about empathizing with the patient and the patient's right to refuse care. He's gettin' way ahead of himself.
A young African-American doctor (played by Mekhi Phifer) appears for Carter, who introduces him to Mark as Greg Pratt, an intern who's just completed nine months at the VA and is heading into a three-month internship at County, becoming a resident somewhere in July. "Here?" Mark asks. "Only if the match screws me," Pratt breezes. "Nice," Mark says under his breath, peeved at the been-there-done-that arrogance of this young man with hair. Pratt says he's ready to jump right into his medical work. "Pretty much seen it all, one way or another," he says seriously. Mark's all, "Oh-ho, is that right?" and Pratt nods. What an ass. And I can't take him seriously, because somehow, somewhere on his path to NBC, Mekhi morphed into a clone of Alfonso Ribeira. I can't look at him without seeing Carlton dancing to "It's Not Unusual."
Sirens and horns wail in the ambulance bay, and Carter offers to handle the incoming trauma case. Mark volunteers to take it instead, and steers Carter and Pratt inside to deal with an Egyptologist that's waiting for treatment. "I'll help you with that crossover later," Pratt calls to Mark, who snorts that he's fairly sure he's got that covered. "Uh-uh, you're palming it," Pratt cautions. Mark wishes he could palm Pratt straight onto the Lifetime network. His glare sears a hole through his glasses, and Mark shoots carelessly. The hoop apparently hasn't heard that Mark is dying, and so doesn't move to accommodate the wild lob; Mark misses and stands tensely, a simmering kettle of tepid, beige irritation. Roll credits.
John Wells: So. It's your last episode in the hospital. I'm trying to think of a way to make it unique.
Anthony Edwards: Personally, I think all the women in Mark's life should come back for a massive orgy dedicated entirely to celebrating his skill in the sack. And then...
JW: Are you drunk? No one will watch that crap.
AE: But...sex sells, man!
JW: Not when you have it, it doesn't.
AE: Well, you didn't let me get to the best part. So Mark has all this sex...
JW: Hang on, I need Pepto....Okay. Proceed.
AE: And then, after all that sweat and hot monkey love...
JW: [vomits violently]
AE: ...Mark has this, like, romantic epiphany, and disappears, only to show up fifteen minutes later at Doug Ross's house in Seattle. And then they move to Vermont.
JW: You made me puke for that? You are so fired from the cast of my ill-fated knock-off project, NYFD Red.
AE: Dammit! Okay, okay. I get it. No sex, no Clooney.
JW: Look, I'm running late -- I have Sorkin handcuffed in the basement and I need to toss him some meat scraps. But here's ER 101: patients come in, they all parallel a character's life, then they disappear conveniently. That's the way it works. That's the formula. People don't care anymore anyway. Suck it up like a good boy.
AE: Can I at least have a lollipop?
JW: Only if you rub my feet.
AE: I was going to do that anyway.
Inside the ER, Mark greets a loud, ornery man whose eardrum popped when a ball hit him in the head. "We'll give you drops to heal it," Mark promises. "Clops?" yells Ornery. "Drops," shouts Mark. A nurse wheels Ornery into an exam room as Abby "Pythagoras" Lockhart blatantly defies the laws of her triangle and exchanges dialogue with someone who isn't Carter or Luka. She hands Mark a styrofoam cup as Mark asks if Abby's been subjected to Frank's wacky, wild career aptitude test. "He hasn't cornered me yet," she grins wryly. Mark sips his drink and grimaces -- Abby's given him green tea with Echinacea: "Good for the immune system," she points out, with feeling. It's tough to tell whether this is an innocent attempt to convert people to herbal tea, or if it's directed at the fact that he's come down with a nasty case of brain cancer and needs fluids, rest, and nature's magic to cure it. I suspect it's the latter. Poor, deluded Abby. No med school for her. Mark hates the drink and wants the regular coffee sludge. He and Abby wander into Reception.
Frank is there with Dr. Michael "Hey Pratt, I Was Here First" Gallant, quizzing him for the career test. "Would you rather pose nude, or be bitten by a ferret?" Frank asks. Gallant barely ponders the porn angle before announcing, "Ferret," but I'm not sure that choice will necessarily steer him away from degrading nudity. Frank declares that Gallant's acing the test, falling somewhere between rock star and lion tamer. "Just a hint of Mick Jagger," he adds. "And a whole lotta Siegfried and Roy," smirks Abby. Gallant takes this cue, for it is his, and exits.
In Gallant's absence, we get Pratt, because apparently we can't have both black actors in the scene at once. Carter shows the young intern around the front desk area. "If you get both clerk and nursing orders..." he begins. "...Start with the clerk rack," interrupts Pratt, nodding boredly. Frank sidles up to them and introduces himself. "Pratt," the intern says in response. "Got a first name?" Frank asks. "At the VA, they call me 'Doctor,'" smarms Pratt, who, as it happens, is a total prat. "Here, we'll call you 'Junior,'" Frank grumbles without missing a beat. As Frank dodders away, Carter has the audacity to turn to Pratt and make a circular hand motion near his ear that is the international symbol for Frank Is A Crazy Old Coot. And I find that irritating, because however gruff and close-minded Frank can be, Pratt was incredibly rude and condescending to him and didn't deserve Carter's quiet allegiance there.
Dr. Kerry "Deserves an Emmy" Weaver strolls up, scowling and staring at the board. She tries to give Dr. Luka "Making Croatia Sexy" Kovac an incoming trauma, but he waves her off, already having had three critical patients on his roster that day. Mark offers to take it, but Kerry ignores him and starts handing her patients to Carter so that she can take the new case. One of hers is "the hunt for the lost condom," which totally sounds like a new X-rated Nancy Drew caper, one that also stars an entire brood of aptly named Hardy Boys. Frank remembers that Abby's landlord called her. "My landlord?" pipes up Luka loudly. As Frank snots that, no, it's Abby's landlord, the camera follows Mark...
...who spies an arriving critical patient and jumps on it just to prove a point with Weaver. Norma Cruz, forty-six years old, is a multiple-sclerosis sufferer who's suffering respiratory distress. Weaver spies Mark attending to her and shouts for Carter to take it. Kerry, if you're so freaking worried about Mark taking patients, then why is he still working for you? Fire him. Now that would be a scene I'd watch for free. "I'm good," calls an offended Mark, trying to be casual.
Carter introduces Pratt to the MICN unit that Frank controls. "Don't touch it, Junior," barks Frank. "Don't call me that," Pratt warns coldly. Oh my God, there he goes again with the looking like Carlton. I'd start calling him that if he wasn't so prat-tacular and therefore already perfectly monikered. "In case my point was missed," Weaver snaps, "it wouldn't hurt us to lighten Dr. Greene's load." The other doctors and nurses present -- Carter, Abby, and Luka, chiefly -- mumble their assent. Pratt, naturally, wonders why, since he's new here. But after having made that announcement in front of him, Kerry decides it's none of his business and refuses to elaborate.
Luka enters Trauma Yellow, where Norma's being treated as her agitated son Rickie (christened as such by me, because his portrayer Wilson Cruz was bisexual Rickie Vasquez on My So-Called Life) watches the proceedings. "They said she'd be dead a month ago," he whimpers. Luka quietly offers to take over the case from Mark, who doesn't exactly warm to the gesture. "Is it my birthday or something?" he asks tersely, not looking up from Norma's body. Luka exhales and looks guilty. "Then it's okay for me to treat my own patient?" Mark quizzes. It might be, if she'd actually been your patient, Mark. Luka smiles respectfully and apologizes.
Back to Norma. Abby says Norma's veins are shot, and she can't get a proper IV into her, so Mark explains to Rickie that he needs permission to put in a special IV that will administer antibiotics. Rickie freaks and says he's got to wait for his lawyer sister, Linda, who "drew up the papers," presumably for a DNR order. But then Norma's pressure plunges, and Mark pressures the clearly frightened boy for a decision, claiming there's no time to wait for Linda. After wringing his hands and making it clear he's in no way representative of his mother's wants and needs, Rickie nods and chokes and pants, which is evidently Mark's cue to try to save Norma.
Pratt and Carter enter the room of Willa, an unconscious Egyptologist from the Art Institute. Her friend solemnly insists that she's afflicted with the curse of the mummy, because they found her passed out in front of Nefertiti's tomb. And Ms. Egyptologist won't wake up until the end of the episode, at which time she'll vomit an anvil onto the bed, so for now, consider Willa mere window dressing. Chuny bursts in and demands Carter's help in Exam One, but Pratt smoothly moves to the door and says, "I'll take it." Carter's a bit jarred by his cockiness, but lets him head off to take the case. "It's a penile fracture," he says lightly. Pratt stares and repeats that, all, "You can fracture that?" But he swallows his discomfort and charges out toward Exam One. Except he instead enters whatever room is door to the one Carter and Chuny are in, and when she points out Pratt is in the wrong room, Carter blithely says, "He'll figure it out." So apparently, it's okay to let a doctor grope any old patient as long as it's for comedic purposes. Does dispensing accidental penis rubs count as good customer service?
Pratt snaps on The Rubber Glove of Sir Could You Please Drop Your Pants. Ornery, still yelling because he can't hear, shouts, "MY PANTS? WHAT?" Pratt promises that he's a doctor and it's safe. He closes the blinds on the window facing the lobby, but doesn't close the blinds that would block Carter and Chuny's view, so luckily for everyone they get an unobstructed glimpse of the action. And so, incidentally, does Willa's friend. That is professional. Ornery yells that he's just waiting for some drops. "That's not going to do it," Pratt snaps. "The pants, please." Ornery shrugs and drops trou, wondering aloud if this is truly necessary. It never occurs to him to explain his malady further, because that's a sure-fire hijinks-killer. Pratt presumably starts clinically handjobbing Ornery. "OW, EASY THERE," booms Ornery. Carter and Chuny and Willa's pal are watching interestedly. Willa's pal, eyes gleaming, looks impressed by Pratt's, er, bedside manner. I think he's on the verge of knocking himself out just so he can get Pratted. Meanwhile, Pratt purses his lips and asks if Ornery has been having vigorous sex. "NO, I WAS HIT IN THE HEAD," booms Ornery. Pratt naturally assumes he means the other head on his body, and peers at it with interest, saying most sprains occur on the shaft of the penis and marveling that damage to Ornery's unit seems more or less "minor." Ornery bristles, "DUDE, I HAVE AN EARACHE!" Pratt pulls back, startled, and then glares at Carter and Chuny's giggling faces. Willa's friend licks his lips.
A crusty old homeless man tries to ward off Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen. "Dr. Greene!" he yells. He is Al, and from what I gather, he's a regular visitor for Mark. Chen grabs Al's arms and impatiently orders him to sit still. Chen heaves an enormous and rude sigh for effect, so that Mark looks like an angel of mercy to her callousness. "How's the junk business?" Mark asks. Pratt appears over Mark's shoulder to observe. Al complains about trouble with his feet, and Chen shrilly brats that he won't take off his shoes so that she can examine him. "I don't know her," Al frets. Mark lies that Chen is perfectly competent, and then proceeds to undermine her by taking over the case. There are ghouls attacking Al's feet, see, and only Mark is kind enough to take the man's complaints seriously. Which is too bad, because I bet Dr. Scholls would have a cure. Pratt starts snickering unforgivably, right in front of the patient. Mark ignores this. "The [ghouls] in the burned-out Jeep or the ones that roam the rooftops?" he asks Al, quite seriously. Al whispers desperately that there are new ghouls chasing him, and that they're everywhere. Mark is sympathetic because he knows what that's like -- he married one, divorced one, and helped beget the third. Pratt chokes, "Uh, Psych consult?" Al snaps, "Screw you, Junior." Woo! Go Al!
Mark gently tells Al to let Chen examine his feet, and promises to take care of the cart. He leads Pratt away angrily, pausing a few feet away to lecture him on the perils of demeaning their "frequent flyers." Pratt is openly laughing. "He's seeing ghouls!" chortles the brat. "What's wrong with calling for a Psych consult?" Before Mark can come up with a snappy comeback -- and let's face it, that might've been a long time anyway -- a trauma patient arrives and diverts Mark's attention.
The paramedic introduces the ailing man as Freddy Harrison, age thirty. "He's twenty-eight," bitches his girlfriend, played by Lori Petty. Mark instructs Pratt to go back and try dealing with Al again. "No, I'll hang with you," Pratt says coolly, nosing his way toward the gurney. Mark shoves him away and demands that he get a thorough patient history for Al. "Come on, Carter said I could get my hands dirty!" whines Pratt. That struck me funny, because it sounded too familiar. Pratt should be calling him "Dr. Carter" at this point; I can't imagine Carter or Lucy or even Malucci calling Mark "Greene" on their respective first days. It goes to show you how brazen Pratt is. Mark ignores Pratt's plea and points him toward Al. Pratt pouts and toddles off to see if the Fresh Prince wants to shoot some hoops on the playground.
Freddy, it seems, is a druggie. He was found in a remote alley with dilated pupils and poor breathing patterns. Lori noisily claims he was in rehab and was clean, but that hardly explains his condition. Carter appears and offers to take over the case. "Carter, you've officially listened to Weaver. Now back off," spits Mark. Taken aback, Carter's head twitches and he flees the room.
Lori starts braying that they're ruining Freddy's clothes by removing them to treat him. Abby and Mark endeavor to make her back off so they can do their jobs, proving yet again how intrusive the presence of family and friends can be in the trauma room. I would stop singing that song if they'd stop scripting new verses for me. Suddenly, Freddy's equipment starts beeping furiously, and he sits up and yanks out the tube that was helping him breathe. He makes a retching noise, but the director stops short of demanding puke, which is so unlike this show lately. They try unsuccessfully to tame Freddy, and he leaps up and runs out of the trauma room in boxers and a wife-beater, screaming for his wallet. Lori trails him, wailing and accusing everyone of stealing their things -- including Freddy's pants -- and being total crooks. Enrique the Rockin' Speed-Racer Orderly whizzes around the corner suddenly and plows a gurney right into Lori, banging her violently against the wall. She crumples to the floor. Carter and Mark rush to her side. Lori is white as a sheet, sweating and screaming that her baby's coming out. Her hair is a pink-tinged skull-cap. Man, Lori Petty used to be pretty, and not scary, and not puffy and pale and bloated. Ooh, that's not nice of me. Now I'm being Lori Petty. Mark warns her not to push and yells for the services of a gurney, preferably one not piloted by Enrique.
Luka strolls into Trauma Green, where Lori lies. "Looks like I missed the fun," he says humorlessly. Abby establishes that the floor's wet, thanks to a leaky ceiling and torrential rain. She then asks if security caught and sedated the maniac. "Didn't have to," Luka smiles. "He passed out and smashed his face." They peer over and see Carter laying Freddy out in Trauma Yellow. Lori wails that her tummy hurts and Luka asks her how far along she is in her pregnancy. "What?" she shrieks, clueless. "When are you due?" clarifies Luka patiently. "I don't know!" she spits, all, "What the fuck is this 'due' shit? Is this kid my Math homework or something?" All the doctors shoot disapproving looks to each other. Mark decides he's got to check in on Freddy and heads for the swinging doors, but his left foot slips and skids on the floor slightly just as lightning hits outside. You know, in case we doubted this was important.
Mark regains his balance nonchalantly and enters Trauma Yellow. Carter wants to bag Freddy but can't get a clear view down his esophagus, and offers the chance to Mark. He hesitates, though, because he has a brain tumor and everything. Abby runs in at that second and announces Lori is birthing her baby. Mark obediently trots after Abby back into Trauma Green...
...and huddles around Lori's spread legs, peering up into the promised land alongside Luka and Abby. It's an uncomfortable shot. It's like they're waiting to see if the groundhog will go back in and stick them with six more weeks of winter. Luka tells Lori not to push, probably because the baby's small enough that she won't need to and if she did, it would shoot across the room like a projectile. "Call the NICU," Mark orders. He grabs the baby after zero fanfare and runs it over to a side table. "Is that my baby?" moans Lori. No, honey. Your shoe just popped out of your womb. Mark and Abby toil over the child, pleading with the blue baby to start breathing. She's Bertha II: Electric Booga-Blue. Mark bags the kid and commences compressions. "My beautiful boy," moans Lori, although no one told her the gender, so apparently she did go to the doctor at least once during her pregnancy. She's fighting to get a glimpse of it, and Luka politely tells her she'll have to wait. "If you want us to help your baby, you have to tell us if you're using heroin," Mark curtly calls out. Lori sweats that she doesn't shoot up anymore, so Mark lists a string of other likely vices and Lori denies all of them with tear-stained vigor, even as her eyes flit around worriedly. She's so getting kicked off the baseball team for this.
The baby has started to pink up, so Mark's free to leave things in Abby's hands and go check on Freddy. As he heads for the sliding doors again, he slips in the same spot and crashes to the ground, causing everyone to stare at him in pitying silence. It's as if we're supposed to think the tumor made him slip, even though they went to great pains to establish that the floor was wet and slick. They're blaming the tumor like it's chaos theory. If Mark Greene falls on his ass, then the tumor put him there. If it starts raining roaches in France, it's because the tumor twitched a tad. There's a long shot of Mark lying tiredly on the ground as Abby asks if he's okay. The thunder rolls. The lightning strikes. A hero moans.
But then Mark pops right up and bounces into Trauma Yellow. Carter's still having problems intubating, and offers Mark one shot. Mark takes the fiber-optic scope in his left hand. "I thought you were right-handed," Carter notices. "I'm a switch-hitter," Mark replies quickly. As he scopes the area, he gives Carter the signal to advance the tube down Freddy's throat, and the procedure goes off without a hitch. Carter compliments Mark.
In Trauma Green, Abby solemnly hands Mark the results of Lori's toxicology tests. He scans them in the foreground, and in the background, Luka tells Lori they're taking her baby up to Intensive Care and she wails that they're stealing him. "I love him," she whimpers pathetically. Mark turns and unleashes his brewing maelstrom of mild vexation. "You almost killed him," he snaps, catching Lori off-guard. "That's not what I wanted," she offers lamely. Mark rails that she tested positive for opiates, spending her days shooting up instead of properly caring for her fetus. "I was going to," Lori sobs noisily. Mark accuses her of being too strung-out to even realize she was incubating a cigar in her humidor. "Dr. Greene," warns Luka quietly. Mark's face is contorted with ill humor. Abby and Haleh just watch, fascinated, wondering if suddenly the tumor itself will suddenly shoot out of this loose cannon. None of them makes a concerted attempt to stop his unprofessional behavior, probably because he's saying what they're thinking and it's vicariously cathartic for them to see it happen. Lori babbles that she's been really stressed out lately. "Oh, well, that explains why you've been using cocaine, too," Mark rants. "And don't tell me you haven't been drinking, because your blood-alcohol level is fifty-four!" Lori's runny nose moans that she had one beer last night. She's crumbling and weeping shrilly. Mark yells at her for lying about her activities and endangering the life of her child. Then, he invites her to look at the tiny, feeble infant splayed on the table in front of Luka and Abby. Mark angrily rattles off a list of the problems Lori's son will endure because of her carelessness: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, growth retardation, developmental delays, withdrawal from the heroin, and brain damage from the cocaine. Rachel...oops, I mean "Lori" whimpers and cries and begs Mark to stop. "Please!" she screams, her voice clogged with tears. Her high-pitched screams make my ears bleed. Shut up! There's no crying in baseball.
In Trauma Yellow, seen by us through Trauma Green's open blinds, Carter and Chuny's heads jolt upward when they hear Lori's shouts and they curiously watch Mark's rant. Lori's repeating "stop it" over and over, helpless and convulsing with sorrow. She always knew cotton-candy hair would send her down the wrong path, and this is her sorry, sorry proof. "Congratulations," Mark spits. "You're a mother." Mark storms out, leaving Luka, Abby, and Haleh in startled silence. Fade to black.
Upstairs in the Oncology ward, Mark is with Marni the nurse, who hooks him up to an IV that's dispensing treatment for his cancer. She makes small talk about the Bulls and her grandson while trying to find a vein, and Mark impatiently says, "Try and hit it the first time, Marni." He's crabby and having trouble and basically is quite the impatient patient. He clearly isn't interested in her babble and wants to be left alone. "Let that infuse --" Marni begins. "For twenty minutes. I know," Mark finishes flatly. She leaves and Mark sighs, scanning the room with his eyes. He's last in a line of chairs that looks startlingly beauty-parlor-esque, with two other older patients either getting cancer treatments or waiting for the pedicurist. A woman gazes back at him, causing Mark to transfer his glance to the art on the walls. It's all tranquil stuff, and there's one photograph of a setting sun, which is sort of a tasteless reminder that the sun may be setting on these people's lives. Marni suddenly re-enters and says Pratt is on the phone from down in the ER. Mark rolls his eyes, takes the receiver and tries to blow Pratt off; however, whatever news the intern has is enough to stiffen Mark. "I'll be right there," he promises. Hanging up, he tells Marni to meet him downstairs with the vincristine he needs as part of his chemo. She protests the idea of this house call. "I am not going home," Mark stresses, grabbing his IV stand and bolting downstairs.
Pathetically, Mark wends his way through the crowd in the elevator, hooked up to and clutching at his clunky IV stand. A pianist tickles the ivories yet again to convey that Mark's a symbol of tragedy and inner courage, lest we go five minutes without the aural reminder of his fate. It ends up making me tired.
Mark pulls up to Al's gurney, around which Carter, Abby, and Pratt are hovering. "He barfed on Pratt's shoes and passed out," Carter informs Mark. Abby bumps into Mark's IV stand by accident, then without missing a beat grabs his fluid bag and hangs it up to Al's with a smile. Mark thanks her. "Don't go too far," she teases. Al rolls into consciousness and groggily asks where Mark went. "Did you take your insulin?" Mark asks. "There's so much to remember," Al slurs through a fog of old age and fatigue. Carter's jaw tenses and he turns tensely to Pratt. "He's a diabetic?" Carter quizzes. "News to me," Pratt shrugs, practically yawning. Mark snaps that Pratt obviously didn't follow Mark's instructions, and didn't put together a comprehensive patient history before treating Al. "So what was that, a test?" sneers Pratt. No, asswipe, it's called being a proper doctor. I know they're trying to make him the new Benton, confident and supremely cocky, but they're going too far. Benton's a lot of things, but I don't know that he'd snap back at his superior like that after blatantly screwing up and putting a patient in danger, and failing even to research that patient properly. "I have a glooooorious history," drawls Al, apropos of little. Carter also glares at Pratt and shakes his head disapprovingly. Mark demands an intubation tray, which confuses Pratt, because Al's breathing fine. But sure enough, Al subsequently stops breathing, and a piece of egg slides down Pratt's face. Mark tells Pratt to perform the Selleck, which I believe involves sucking on a cigar, donning extremely short shorts, and alternately shaving and growing a bushy mustache. Pratt, naturally, is baffled, so Mark grabs his hand and puts it on Al's neck while Carter bags Al and pumps oxygen into his mouth. This revives him, but the execution was bad because you could tell Pratt wasn't applying any real pressure to Al's neck. It was bad fake doctoring. "When his blood sugar's over seven hundred, sometimes he stops breathing," Mark says knowledgeably. Mark is a thorough and attentive doctor. Mark is a gem, everyone. So we should cry, because Mark is wise old Nicodemus, and life's about to drop a boat on top of him. Pratt mutters something critical of Mark for withholding the information about Al. Sharply, Mark calls for Pratt to follow him to a more private area, and starts to walk away without unhooking his IV. As it pulls taut, he stumbles. No wonder Pratt holds him in such low esteem. Abby stops Mark and fixes it.
As they pedeconference down a corridor, Pratt rails at Mark for not telling him Al was diabetic. "I told you to work him up," lectures Mark. "I was looking for chronic athlete's foot," Pratt defends himself. "You missed [the diagnosis] because you didn't follow instructions," Mark fumes. "It didn't seem necessary," Pratt says. Oh no. He didn't just say that. A doctor-in-training did NOT just say he didn't find it important to be thorough. What a prat-tastic prick. It does seem silly of Mark to hold back information about a patient's preexisting condition, especially when he's passing that patient into the care of a less experienced doctor, but Pratt's got nothing to back up his carelessness. He shirked his duty, which was to check Al's records and basically be meticulous. He jumped to a diagnosis first, much like Dr. Dave Malucci did on That Fateful Night, and then tried to make the pieces fit that diagnosis. Mark sharply tells him to do the learning and be open to Mark's teachings. "Do I seem like a punk to you?" bristles Pratt. "No," says Mark, which is grossly bogus because Pratt's been acting like a punk all day. "Then stop treating me like that," Pratt snits. Mark tries another tactic. "I'm sure you think you're ready for anything," he begins. "Wait a minute. Is this the one about the old guy and the young guy? Because I've heard it all before," Pratt brats. Mark grits his teeth and invites Pratt to piss off at his earliest convenience, then flounces away, leaving Pratt to marinate in his own incompetence. Not even Uncle Phil can bail him out of this fix.
So Pratt goes looking for commiseration, but sadly for him, he seeks it from Carter, who defends Mark as a good doctor. "He's a burnout, if ever I saw one," Pratt metas. Damn. Badmouthing a senior doctor to someone who's your superior? Pratt's balls must be made of tooth enamel. Worse, Carter never pulls Pratt aside and explains how woeful his attitude is, nor does he stick up for Mark's assessment that Pratt was thoughtless and careless with Al's diagnosis. Instead, Carter stiffly says he learned a lot under Mark's tutelage. Pratt snorts that if he had his preference, he'd stick with Carter all day. "You don't," Carter says simply, shooting Susan a pained and pointed look as Pratt continues to ramble about how messed up Mark is. "He has...a brain tumor, an inoperable GMB that's recurred," Susan blurts, irritated. "He's in his second round of chemotherapy." ["That's so inappropriate. I mean, yeah, if Mark had stayed past the end of this shift, probably this information would have come out naturally, but Susan kept this secret for so long, even (kind of) from Mark's WIFE, and yet this fuckwad who's been in the ER for five minutes gets to know all Mark's business? I don't approve. And given Susan's earlier discretion, it's uncharacteristic of her to just sigh it out like that, as if she's telling Pratt Mark is a Leo or something." -- Wing Chun] Pratt, rather than being sympathetic, gapes, "He's still working?" It comes out as criticism, although he might've meant it as admiration for Mark's dedication to the job. But, it's doubtful. Weaver appears to make sure everything's okay in this intense-seeming conversation. As Carter shrugs on his lab coat, he smirks, "Pratt was just saying how much he's benefiting from Dr. Greene's experience." Pratt rolls his eyes. Weaver obliviously extols Mark's virtues as a teacher.
Haleh interrupts with Seidel's test results, handing them to Pratt, who reads them with a frown.
Later, Pratt confers with Mark and bemoans that he can't reach Mr. Seidel's normal physician. "Son of a bitch," Mark curses. "The guy shouldn't have to find out from doctors he's never met." Apparently, Mr. Seidel has an advanced form of prostate cancer that hadn't ever been detected. As Mark gets on the horn to find Seidel's doctor, Pratt clears his throat and uneasily begins his apology. "In medical school, I was the hot shot, and I forgot I'm not one here," he says. "Not yet, at least." Mark fires back, "Like I said, no rush." Pratt rubs his chin and continues that he's sorry for being disrespectful. Mark turns to stare at him for a moment. He's suspicious, because nobody smooches his booty without a desperately good reason. "Someone told you I'm dying," he realizes. Pratt's left momentarily stunned and speechless, and Mark ignores him because he's gotten Seidel's doctor on the phone. The man clearly had no interest or idea that his patient has prostate cancer. "The huge irregular mass on his enlarged prostate may have been one clue," snarks Mark. Pratt gives a "sing it, brother" smile. Mark further demands that the doctor put down his hot chocolate and get off his ass to fly back to Chicago, but the man hangs up on him. Pratt laughs and his eyes shine with new respect, as if the demonstrable proof of Mark's spine suddenly taught him an important lesson about love and medicine. "Very persuasive," chuckles Pratt. "Should we tell him?" Mark figures they'll let him sleep for a while, hands off the chart to Pratt, and moves onto the patient. Pratt watches him go, all, "Hey, that honky's all right."
Rickie's sister Linda has arrived, and is yelling at Rickie for defying their mother's orders and allowing doctors to resuscitate and treat her. Rickie shrinks inside himself and disappears to a pretty place with gumdrop houses and chocolate flowers, and where the pound cakes are as glazed as his eyes. Dr. Elizabeth "Hey, I Get Makeup This Week" Corday is there, extubating Norma while Linda bitches that the intubation should never have happened in the first place. Well, hey, were you there? No? Okay. Linda primly wields her power-of-attorney and insists that they let Norma perish. "Don't you get it? She wants to die," Linda argues. "You people can't accept that. It's like a defeat to you." Mark stares at her. A bell's ringing inside his brain, and no, it's not just the tumor clamoring for attention again. Linda proffers the DNR agreement and Mark skims it, then gives the order to pull the plug and the tube. Rickie cries. Linda scowls. Mark has the usual inscrutable look on his face where you can't tell if he's trying to act or just standing there, but he's probably thinking something like, "My gosh, soon I will be Norma, and Elizabeth and Rachel will be the other two! And they'll be crying and traumatized...and they're going to fucking pull the PLUG on my dying ass?! Screw that!"
Mark spies Marni waiting outside with his vincristine and hightails it outside with his IV. Elizabeth watches, worried and curious, then decides to march over there and crack this case. Mark explains to her that he was called down mid-treatment, so Marni's doing him a favor by bringing the second stage to him in the ER. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?" Elizabeth frets. "I wish people would stop asking me that," Mark sighs emptily. Well, perhaps they're asking that because of your little outburst last week, Tantrum Boy. Isn't concern better than indifference? Maybe he doesn't know how to tell them apart. Anyway, Elizabeth promises to dispatch with Norma for him while he gets the vincristine treatment.
Mark rounds the corner and perches on a bed parallel to Al's. The older man lies there wailing that his cart has been taken away and that he's not used to being separated from it. "It's okay, Al, I'm right here," Mark says tiredly, holding out his arm. Marni gets up in the camera's lens and blathers about the treatment over the din of Al's moaning and sobbing, and Mark blinks hard to take it all in, or shut it all out. He can't do either. Turning toward the window into Trauma Green, he considers Elizabeth for a second, then turns back to Marni and tries once more to block out the noises. "Pleeeease," begs Al noisily. Given her demeanor this week, I'm surprised Chen hasn't stopped by with a truncheon to club him to sleep. Mark snaps his eyes open. He sees Al's fate as his own -- lying helpless in a bed, semi-aware of the world and wholly unable to live without medicine that even still can't guarantee him a quality life -- and he balks. "I'm not doing this," he decides. "I'm done." As he waves a puzzled Marni away, Mark crosses to Al and offers to help him find his cart. Elizabeth stares at him through the glass as she scrubs her hands, aware that something wicked this way comes and wondering if Mark's last marble has just rolled down the sewer.
When we return, we're with Willa the Egyptologist, who's now awake and clarifying that the "curse of the mummy" is actually just a condition called Aspergilloma, meaning the pollution of the lungs by nefarious fungi found in dirt -- something she'd be inadvertently inhaling at an excavation, for instance, or during a visit to the desert. Willa's embarrassed to have picked it up. As Mark speaks to her, he loses his thought and his breath for a second, and Chuny gets to kick off the latest string of slow, scared looks indicating the realization of Mark's illness. "I work too much, and that's why I'm sick," moans Willa. Chuny whispers, "You'll be okay soon," but she's staring right at Mark and her words are deep-fried in subtext. Willa quotes a Joni Mitchell song: "Don't it always seem to go [that] you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" She then coughs up an ancient Egyptian anvil, on which hieroglyphics are carved that translate simply to, "We KNOW." Chuny smiles sadly. Mark slowly lifts his head. The light of inner truth bathes him. He's moved. He's going to speak. He's going to dip a chunk of battered subtext in marinara and bite it off with glee. "I hate that song," he bitches. Oh.
Out in the hall, Elizabeth hails Mark and whispers urgently that they're saving a room for him up in Oncology. Mark's all, "No, Elizabeth. They're saving a room for me...in Heaven." As Elizabeth refuses to believe he's honestly quit chemo, Mark steers her to a private corner of Trauma Green -- wha? -- so he can convince her he's serious. "You can't decide this alone on the spur of the moment," Elizabeth insists shakily. Mark leans in and whispers, "This may be the last important decision I make." She insists he's bailing on the chemo too soon, without giving it enough chance to work. Mark shares that he dropped a tube today because he couldn't command his thumb to wrap around it. Elizabeth, frustrated, swears he shouldn't write off the chemo yet. "It's a game, Elizabeth," Mark whispers, leaning further toward her face and hunching over in what he imagines is an "intense" stance. "I don't want to play." Her eyes damp, Elizabeth claims the treatment could prolong his life. "Give yourself that time," she chokes. "Give it to me and Ella." And, after a pause, "Give it to Rachel. Who knows what might happen." Trying to brighten, Elizabeth notes the number of miracle patients they see who were told they never should have lived so long. Mark watches her with a hint of affection, touched that she's fighting for his life even though he's given up already, and dreaming of scoring a blissful stock of goodbye sex instead of the pity sex he's gotten most of his life.
Once Elizabeth stops to take a breath, Mark cranes his neck at a new and odd angle so that they're on eye level, sort of. "I need to be realistic," he whispers. "You mean give up," she says bitterly, fighting tears valiantly. "No," Quasimodo avers. "It's making a choice." Elizabeth furrows her brow. This is Mark's cue to grab a sack of all the anvils he's had dropped on his noggin and beat Elizabeth repeatedly with them. "I'd rather have two good months than twice that chained to meds, and needles, and IV stands," he intones. "Stuck in a bed? Sitting to other clock-watchers, being prodded and small-talked to by doctors and nurses? All of them with that look in their eye like you're already gone." Mark gulps that he doesn't want to end his life that way, because that's just what the Emmy voters would expect him to do. Trembling, Elizabeth stammers that they'll find new regimens and alternative therapies, anything to keep him alive. Pratt interrupts to let Mark know that Mr. Seidel has woken up; Mark ignores him. He intently says, "There's no alternative. I'm just dying the way I've lived." Dully, then, and clinging tightly to whatever hair he has left. Elizabeth closes her eyes and nods, pained. Mark kisses her forehead, his hands planted on her face. "I'll see you at home," he says. "I love you." And instead of reiterating the sentiment, or finding the kindness to fake it for his sake, Elizabeth simply stands rigidly as Mark walks out. She says nothing. Probably, it's because she's going to tumble into bed with Romano at the earliest convenience. Bless her.
Pratt and Mark gingerly approach Mr. Seidel's room. "Ready?" Mark asks. "I can do it. I know the job," Pratt says, again overdoing the bravado. Mark warily follows him into the room. "My old lady's waiting with my daughter at some burger joint, so let's get this over with," he chirps. Pratt stands before him and quietly says, "Your presentation is consistent with metastatic cancer of the prostate." Seidel, naturally, is not necessarily impressed by Pratt's facility with multiple syllables. "Cancer? Are you sure?" he gapes. He peppers Pratt with questions about how bad the cancer is, and whether he could die; the increased pressure nibbles away at Pratt until finally he's rendered speechless, feeling ill-equipped to handle this earnest and distressed man's queries. Mark just watches, because he is Seidel and he's been there and he's been elevated to a higher plane of understanding. Or, he's staring at the wall wondering when dinnertime is. Seidel reads the silence as something frightening. "I could die?" he bellows in disbelief, turning to Mark, who smiles joylessly and strolls toward Seidel. "You need to prepare yourself for the worst," Mark says quietly. "I know what a shock this is, and what must be going through your mind right now." Seidel shakes his head. "Yeah, I can," Mark insists gravely. Pratt sighs and skulks out of the room to call Seidel's family. When he escapes into the hall, he leans against the wall and covers his mouth, shaken.
Fade to Pratt sitting in a chair outside the room. Mark exits and coldly suggests that Pratt should go sit with his patient. "What did you say to him?" Pratt asks. "It wasn't anything I learned from being a doctor," Mark answers, walking away. Pratt watches him go, silently lamenting that his performance as a physician and his depth as a man apparently hinges on the acquisition of a tumor.
Chen wrestles with Al, who's trying to yank out his tubes and flee. Mark walks over to investigate the ruckus. "It's wet out there," Mark warns Al. "It's raining." Al points out that it's stopped, and that he's done there, and wants to leave because he hates being there. Mark points out that it will become increasingly harder for Al to care for himself. "Do you have any family you can go to?" he asks. "No, there's nobody," Al says. "[But] I don't belong here. Whatever's going to happen, I want it to happen outside. Please." Mark realizes it's stopped raining water and started drizzling anvils, and agrees to let Al leave. "It will be over soon, right?" Al asks hopefully. "Yeah, it will," Mark answers. Whee! Meta, meta, met-TA! Conga like you mean it! I checked on Al after this, and he last appeared in the first hour of the ER pilot, "The Longest Day." I don't know what he did, but he was there.
A cranky biddy on the bed brays, "How much longer do I have to sit here?" Mark turns and recognizes her as a Mrs. Raskin. "It's been a long time," he says. "The service isn't what it used to be," she bitches. The forums suggested that she's an actress who appeared in season one as the same character, so I checked, and sure enough she also showed up in "The Longest Day." Mrs. Raskin complains mightily of a foot malady. "I have a hangnail and it is very painful," she snaps. "I have a brain tumor, and it's inoperable," Mark replies. Mrs. Raskin's jaw drops. "I win," Mark nyah-nyahs immaturely, leaving. His newfound empathy apparently only extends to patients with fatal problems.
Across the lobby, a man is begging for some aid for his cherubic blond daughter. As Mark crosses the room to answer the call, the camera pans over to Chen, who was on the phone near Mrs. Raskin and heard Mark's shocking declaration. The look on her face suggests shock, although I've a hard time believing that news hadn't already traveled fast around the hospital. There's no realistic way she didn't already know about the relapse. Therefore, this is just another throwaway "Oh, wow, I am so sorry for him" shot that's smacking us over the head with The Tragedy Of It All. Personally, I don't care in the least about Chen's reaction to the news, because she had no demonstrable ties to Mark. Where the fuck, though, has Susan been in this hour, huh? Shouldn't she be a factor in his last day? Oh, no, wait, this is everybody's tragedy to share. The writers are just spreading it around.
The little cherub, it seems, was injured in a class Mythology project by a random wooden spear. She looks about six. I don't know what the hell school is teaching mythology to first graders. But there she is, wearing a makeshift toga over her clothes and sporting a little spear jammed up underneath her fingernail. Just like those wacky Greeks. "It hurts," she whimpers adorably. Mark rolls an instrument table over to him and smiles that he wants her to close her eyes and tell him all about what she sees. "The sky," she beams. "Orion's belt." Mark, curious, asks what that means. "He couldn't beat the scorpion, so he jumped into the sea....Artemis put him in the sky where the scorpion never gets him." Mark is delighted. The scorpion in his brain is like, "Oh, man, this does not bode well for me." I swear, if he throws himself into the ocean after this, I'm going to go into lactose shock from a cheese overdose. Mark removes the spear and thanks her. "What did I do?" she asks innocently. "You just became my very last patient," Mark informs her. A Hero's Last Patient grins angelically. "Shift over?" her father asks. "Yeah," Mark grins. They all shake hands.
As Haleh passes, Mark tells her to treat Mrs. Raskin and then demand that she never come back. Now look who's being Lori Petty. Haleh stops in her tracks and -- you guessed it! -- stares ruefully at Mark's back as he goes. He turns slightly and smiles. It's A Hero's Last Smile at Haleh.
Pratt catches Mark and informs him that he's scheduled Mr. Seidel's biopsy and that the man's family is en route. "I learned a lot today," he thanks Mark. "Good," Mark replies. "Come back tomorrow." With a self-satisfied smile, Pratt leaves.
Mark hits the lounge , where Weaver is seated at a table, making up the month's schedule. She asks how Pratt did today. "A little eager, a little cocky," Mark says, chuckling lightly. "Should fit right in." As Mark starts scooping personal possessions out of his locker, Weaver pointedly turns around and asks how many shifts he plans to work month. Mark removes his pager, sets it in his locker firmly, and turns to face her. "Never let your work become your life, Kerry," he says seriously. And then, as he leaves, Mark calls out, "Live a little." The camera closes in on Weaver's eyes and their barely perceptible gleam of acknowledgment. And, there's more staring, which is always fun to recap. I'm guessing Weaver figured out right here that Mark isn't coming to work ever again, but it annoys me that Mark never tells her so in plain language. Why do people on television refuse to do that? I find it makes life a lot easier.
Outside, Mark catches Carter dozing off at Reception. "No rest for the weary, Carter," Mark teases. He faces the board and rattles off a long list of instructions to Carter, who's been on since 4 AM but is apparently going to have to forge ahead all night long. Suddenly, Al exits in slow motion, saluting "poignantly" at Mark, who salutes back with a smile. Then, more orders to Carter. They're all mundane things, mostly for treatable patients. "Is somebody actually sick?" Carter asks. "Just the doctor," Mark intones. He's so enamored of the drama of his own life, it's kind of sad. He might as well make A Hero's Last T-Shirt, emblazoned with "Expiration Date: May 2002."
And then we swiftly move to the only truly poignant moment in the whole show. Across the room, Susan gazes over her shoulder at Mark. He catches her eye and stares back. Susan never turns away, never smiles, just looks at him. The air's actually heavy here with memories, with silent realizations of untapped promise and wasted potential. It's the only moment that I actually felt regret for something in Mark's life that will always be the worst kind of "what if," and even though Susan's expression is impassive, Sherry Stringfield still conveys a sense that something's slipping away from her character. Their connection is broken only by a nurse drawing a curtain to block them from each other's view.
Carter interrupts with more blather about patients. Mark spews A Hero's Last Medical Jargon. They give Anthony Edwards a real mouthful, as if it's his last test and the writers are stacking it with tough essay questions. A trauma comes in and Abby whizzes past. "Good night, Dr. Greene," she calls out. "Bye," Mark replies softly. The camera cuts to a slow-motion shot of Abby as she turns around, hair down and swinging, and smiles cheerfully at Mark. That felt more like a Goodbye to Abby shot.
Mark and Carter wander outside. Mark stoops down and picks up the basketball. "It's stopped raining," he notices, as if he didn't believe it before when Al said it. "Yeah," Carter says, bored of trite rain symbolism. Carter lightly asks what time Mark's coming in tomorrow. Mark cradles the basketball and then tosses it to Carter. "Your ball needs air," he says. And there it is: A Hero's Last Double Entendre. "It's not my ball," Carter shrugs. "You set the tone, Carter," Mark says after a brief pause. "What?" Carter asks densely. As Mark walks away, he calls out, "Work on your jump shot." And then he's gone, disappearing into a dark night that's cast in the red glow of Doc Magoo's sign and ambulance lights. Carter, blissfully unaware of the significance of what just happened, chucks the ball up into the air and goes inside.